Time for a change

Published 4:32 am, Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Clear Lake head basketball coach Tommy Penders (left) and Pearland head basketball coach Steve Buckelew would welcome a shot clock in high school basketball.

Clear Lake head basketball coach Tommy Penders (left) and Pearland head basketball coach Steve Buckelew would welcome a shot clock in high school basketball.

Photo: Kirk Sides

Time for a change

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It wasn’t approved by the University Interscholastic League for this fall, but if a 35-second shot clock is employed in high school basketball, Steve Buckelew of Pearland and Tommy Penders of Clear Lake will be giving it a mild (Buckelew) to a ringing (Penders) endorsement.

“I’m 100 percent for it,” Penders said. “I think this year was just too short of a notice to make it happen.

“But the next time it comes up, I think that it will be something that will be put in without a doubt.

“To me, it’s not even debatable that we should have one.”

Buckelew, whose teams’ playing style has varied over the course of his lengthy career, isn’t opposed to a shot clock.

“I probably wasn’t an advocate of it a few years ago, but we’ve been playing pretty fast lately.” Buckelew said. “I’m at a school where we’re going to shoot the ball within 35 seconds.”

The UIL recently had its legislative council meeting in Round Rock and the proposed 35-second shot clock was nixed.

The UIL chose to follow the lead of the National Federation of State High Schools’ rules which do not require high schools to use shot clocks.

Only eight states nationwide - Massachusetts, Rhode Island, California, North and South Dakota, Maryland, Washington and New York - use the shot clock in boys’ and girls’ high school basketball.

A 35-second shot clock would mean less than two possessions per minute if each team used the full allotted time which, seemingly, might defeat the purpose of having a shot clock.

That, of course, doesn’t take into account the very real possibilities of turnovers/steals.

At least initially, Penders believes a 35-second shot clock is the way to go.

“I think 25 or 30 seconds is too short of a time for high school teams to get the ball across midcourt and get into their offense,” Penders said. “A 35-second shot clock forces teams to be more precise, and I think that cleans up the game.

“I think it produces better basketball players by teaching them how to manage the game. Once you get into your offense and run it, you know you have to get the ball to your skill guy in the last six seconds.”

Teams or schools which probably would be opposed to a shot clock would be those that:

A.) Don’t have a high skill level

B.) Don’t have much depth/enrollment

C.) Don’t like fast-paced games

If the shot clock is approved for the 2017-2018 school year, it’s likely it would be used in schools with the larger enrollments.

“I think it’s something that would be good for the fans,” Buckelew said. “I could see it maybe being amended down to 30 seconds in a few years.

“A lot of schools have already experimented with it and, for the most part, I think it went over well.”

If approved, schools would have to invest in a shot clock, and persons would then have to be trained to operate it.

“There are going to be errors, but there are errors made at every level of basketball with a shot clock. The cost of a shot clock? I don’t know…maybe $200 or $300.”

Buckelew said he believes his players could adapt quickly.

“It will change the end of the quarter or game where you spread the floor,” the Pearland coach said, “but I can see us putting (a shot clock) in and being fine with it.

“I think players, coaches and fans would be fine with it.”

Penders cited other benefits of having a shot clock.

“It’s going to help coaches prepare more, and I think our kids are at a slight disadvantage when they go to college without having played with a shot clock,” he said.

Currently, the NBA has a 24-second shot clock while college men and women use a 30-second shot clock.

Various circumstances exist on the resetting of a shot clock, but one example is the 35-second shot clock being reset to 35 seconds after a made basket or after a missed shot which hits the rim.

In other words, one possession might mean using 8 or 9 seconds getting the ball into the forecourt after a made basket while another possession could feature the full 35 seconds to shoot after getting an offensive rebound.

Shot clocks are also reset to 14 seconds in the NBA after fouls in the forecourt.

As simple as it might sound, employing a 35-second shot clock immediately wouldn’t be that easy of a transition for the 2016-2017 season.

“Teams prepare in the spring for next year, and that would be something we could incorporate into preparation,” Penders said, “but I don’t know if it’s good timing right now.”